Slitherine

Hi all,

this is an AAR from my game with Kinghunter (Axis). We started with GS version 2.01.03 and have since now upgraded to 2.01.06.

The war started with Kinghunter attacking contemporarily Poland and the Benelux; Poland fell only after 4 turns, IIRC, while in Belgium he even lost two mechs against heroic counterattacks of the allied forces, along with heavy air losses. We are now in turn 10, on February 28, 1940, from where this AAR starts ...

After months of Phoney War, the Germans resume hostilities in the west.



Immediate counterattacks south-est of Brussels destroy a German infantry corps!



Although we have not seen U-boats in action so far, an unlucky destroyer flotilla runs into a wolfpack, getting the worse part of it. I expect it to be sent to the fishes, next turn.



Last but not least, a look at labs and casualties:





I suppose that the heavy casualties will delay German research; this should allow me to gain some tech advantage especially in the air, where I will concentrate my efforts.

The Wehrmacht continues to push forward, exposing some of it troops to counter-attacks again. Unfortunately, the German corps south-east of Brussels survives at one step.



Luckily enough, the destroyer flotilla is not attacked again and heads to the nearest port for necessary repairs.



Strangely enough, still no other U-boats have been spotted.

Brussels falls, and with it the UK mech. As a consequence, all Allied troops in France suffer a morale shock. Some backward movement is being initiated.



Liege is abandoned, but at the Channel coast a counter-attacked staged out of Antwerp cripples another German infantry corps.



Canada joined the war, and the two immediately available corps are sent to North Africa by ship. The two transports will take different routes, and although unescorted, I am confident that they will get to their destination unscathed, as one sub has been spotted the previous turn, and the others (I guess only two) will be nearby.



In the meantime, convoys continue to get to England unmolested; a quite big one with 49 pps is escorted by a French battleship squadron and English battleships and destroyers.

Again, a look at casualties with quite surprising news …

The Wehrmacht pushes on, but the Allied line still holds. The weakened French fighter force even wipes the 1-step-strong German infantry corps from the map.



And now we know where the U-Boot-Waffe was hiding. They ambushed a 20 pp convoy in the Irish Sea and finished it off. At least now I KNOW that the Canadians will get to North Africa …

I just can't understand the Axis strategy in this game. To me it looks like he's lost the game already with so heavy casualties. The didn't take Brussels earlier than I take with my sitzkrieg so what has he gained by sending his forces to the west to attack in the winter?

Sitzkrieg is maybe boring, but at least it's a safe bet for the Germans. Take out Poland and Denmark on turn 2 and Holland on turn 3 or 4. Then you wait for fair weather and storm Belgium in March 1940 (or earlier if you're lucky with the weather).

If the Germans build and extra fighter and tac bomber late 1939 then can attack with these units as well in March 1940. Taking out Belgium in one turn is a must and actually quite easy to accomplish. It's also easy with a good Axis strategy to cross the Schelde river in the first turn of Case Yellow. Then the left flank of the French army can be rolled up and Lille captured on turn 2 of Case Yellow.

If you attack during fair weather you can exploit how the game deals with retreats on turn 2 of Case Yellow to cross the Meuse and maybe even the Oise. The scenario is that the French have setup a defense behind these rivers forming a double defense line. It seems the Germans are forced to attack across river along the entire front, but that's not true. Instead you bombard a French unit at the bend of the river line until it gets to red efficiency. Then you let a German corps attack it. Since the unit probably will have to retreat it can only retreat TOWARDS the Germans since the line is a double defense line. That means another corps can finish off the retreating unit. Do NOT advance into the hex. Now there is a hole in the river line and you can use armor to get across and attack a unit along the river line. Make sure you bombard it with a fighter so it's more likely to retreat. Then the armor attacks and cause a retreat. Then another armor can move into the hole and attack the next unit from the south side of the river.

By doing this you can actually roll up an entire river line and get 3-4 units across. What limits the width is the number of air units you have at your disposal to bombard the units behind the river down to red efficiency.

If the French retreats to the next river line you can repeat the process. So it's actually dangerous for a defender to have friendly hexes on the "wrong" side of the river. That means the river line can more easily be broken.

So if the Germans invade during the winter they don't have the mobility to use this strategy. When they attack they move into the French defense line to get shots and thus captures the hexes that could have been used for this exploit.

So I think it's not a good idea to attack the French during the winter. You will end up with a war of attrition. You will eventually win, but with higher losses. The only reason to attack early is if you want to do Sealion and believe the Allied player is not up to the task defending the best way he can. Against an able Allied player I think going for Sealion will cripple the preparations for Barbarossa so I only do Sealion if the Allies waste too many British units in France. Then it's easier to get ashore and finish off the rest of the British units.

A good Allies player will mainly use British units in France to screen the Germans and make sure they end up in a coastal hex when France surrenders. Then the "Dunkirk" evacuation rule means they will get to the force pool and can be placed in England the next turn. Inland British units will be destroyed.

Stauffenberg wrote:



If you attack during fair weather you can exploit how the game deals with retreats on turn 2 of Case Yellow to cross the Meuse and maybe even the Oise. The scenario is that the French have setup a defense behind these rivers forming a double defense line. It seems the Germans are forced to attack across river along the entire front, but that's not true. Instead you bombard a French unit at the bend of the river line until it gets to red efficiency. Then you let a German corps attack it. Since the unit probably will have to retreat it can only retreat TOWARDS the Germans since the line is a double defense line. That means another corps can finish off the retreating unit. Do NOT advance into the hex. Now there is a hole in the river line and you can use armor to get across and attack a unit along the river line. Make sure you bombard it with a fighter so it's more likely to retreat. Then the armor attacks and cause a retreat. Then another armor can move into the hole and attack the next unit from the south side of the river.
.

I have used that tactic but it certainly looks to me like an exploit, a double line to avoid retreats is historically sound, but units crossing the river to retreatt towards the enemy? that certainly is not, couldn´t that be corrected? It should be also a concern for Commander WW1, such an exploit could ruin trench warfare

The problem is that the unit is so battered it's supposed to retreat so it will try to retreat to any friendly hex. It will first try to retreat in the direct opposite direction of the attacker and only retreat across the river towards the attacker as a last resort.

If we don't allow retreats across river then it means battered defenders can hold out better than they should. Sometimes they should be allowed to retreat across river, e. g. when retreating away from the attacker.

The alternative could be that a unit can only retreat into hexes not in ZOC of the attacking unit. If the unit is supposed to retreat and can't then the unit should remain in the hex and take an addition 0-3 step losses. This way the unit can be destroyed due to the extra losses, but if it was at full strength it might remain, while quite battered.

So it could actually be better for the defender to not lose the extra steps and instead retreat across the river at the current strength.

So this is a tricky situation.

Some games have a concept of having 3 states on an empty hex. Friendly controlled, enemy controlled and contested. Contest means unoccupied hexes where both sides exert ZOC. We could have a rule saying that retreats can't take place into contested hexes.

Instead the unit will remain in the hex suffering extra damage equal to the number of enemy units exerting ZOC into the hex. So if one unit exerts ZOC into the hex you need to retreat to then you lose only an addition step. If you have to retreat across the river towards the attacker you could enter a hex where 3+ enemies exert ZOC into and maybe get destroyed from standing the ground.

The problem with such a rule is that the attacker can exploit it by not having a continuous line while attacking so retreats become possible (retreats into friendly empty hexes along the front line). Then the defender will suffer extra damage. The rules we have now will not force a unit to retreat into an empty enemy controlled hex.

So regardless of what we do we open for exploits.

I personally think the current system works quite well. I view units that retreat toward the enemy as representing that unit surrendering itself and possibly its position. To change how combat and retreats works would be a fundamental change to the combat engine and could significant unintended consequences that we haven't thought about yet.

One fundamental question is how do you define in precise and unambiguous terms that can be implemented in computer code what constitutes a retreat towards the enemy.

Again, I would vote against any change so fundamental.

What about exchanging position with a friendly unit in the rear hex? That will be both historically sound and give the defending player an option to play with reserves

I agree with Stauffenberg that sitzkrieg is best in GS 2. The changes in GS 2 favour sitzkrieg.

Implementing the allied 1940 plan dyle defence of Belgium in winter works well in GS 2.

Aryaman wrote:What about exchanging position with a friendly unit in the rear hex? That will be both historically sound and give the defending player an option to play with reserves

You do have the swap function. That allows you to switch out battered units with units right behind.

The "forward" retreat is a very useful and important strategy for breaching double lines in CEAW. If it would be removed, it would change the game significantly. Without this rule it would be much harder to breach the French double line in 1940 and even harder to breach any Soviet double line. I always use the "forward retreat" strategy to breach through any double lines.

However, an easy solution could be the use of an old Panzer General rule. If I remember correctly a unit in Panzer General which could not retreat in any direction would automatically surrender and is therefore completely destroyed.

Such a rule could be implemented in GS perhaps as well. Then players would not try to use the "forward retreat tactic" to breach double lines as much as possible, but could breach the line in damaging a unit (normally bombing it to orange or red effiency level) and then attacking with a ground unit to force a surrender.

pk867 wrote:

Aryaman wrote:What about exchanging position with a friendly unit in the rear hex? That will be both historically sound and give the defending player an option to play with reserves

You do have the swap function. That allows you to switch out battered units with units right behind.

Yes, what I meant is to use that swap function in an automatic way, so that any unit forced to retreat in the opponent turn swap position with frienf¡dly unit in the rear

Aryaman wrote:

pk867 wrote:

Aryaman wrote:What about exchanging position with a friendly unit in the rear hex? That will be both historically sound and give the defending player an option to play with reserves

You do have the swap function. That allows you to switch out battered units with units right behind.

Yes, what I meant is to use that swap function in an automatic way, so that any unit forced to retreat in the opponent turn swap position with frienf¡dly unit in the rear

But that would be a massive advantage for any defender. Consider it: The attacker has expended air and ground attacks to reduce and dislodge a defending unit, which swaps place with a fresh unit! No chance to reduce and dislodge the fresh unit in the same turn, meaning that the line holds and the damaged unit can be replaced or replenished in the next turn. No chance for breaking a double defensive line anymore.

Something similar happens when you would let the retreating unit move behind the second-line unit, only that this way the double defensive line would be gradually pushed back. Unless, that is, if this type of retreat _massively_ decreases the efficiency of the second-line unit, whose hex is flooded with retreating soldiers. In that case, it could be possible for an attacker to dislodge the second-line unit from it's defensive position as well.

I don't think that anything have to be done with retreats. It works fine and balanced, as a way to breach double line.

Reasonable alternative is to force unit, which wants to retreat into enemy ZoC, to suffer SIGNIFICANT step and morale loss and move what left (1-3 steps, red effectiveness) to the force pool instead of forward retreat. So this unit will be forced to be on rest and refit for a long time, before sending back to combat. Its in fact thing which usually happened with combat units, when they didn't end pocketed. They were hardly ever destroyed into nothing, they rather were removed from the frontline.

Taking defeated units into force pool rather then remove them from map is deffinetely more realistic for full supply units, but it will ruin entire game balance.

The battle for France is nearing its end. Superior German arms and a weakened French army can only delay, but not avoid, defeat. A general retreat is ordered, trying to get some cover behind main rivers.



As the 49 pps convoy approaches England, all available ships are sent to protect it. The destroyer flotilla which already saw action some turns ago promptly runs into a wolfpack again but gets its revenge this time.

The line is collapsing; if France holds out for more than three turns I’ll call that a miracle.



Wolfpacks are still operating in the Irish Sea, but are paying the price for it.



Next turn I should get my first dogfight upgrade.

And here it is – I reach technical parity with the Germans at least in this sector.



In France, there’s no safety even behind rivers. But fortunately the Germans do not achieve a breakthrough but keep pushing the whole line back.



There’s no choice but to retreat again, but I could have done it better.



In the Med lots of naval movement brings me to patrol the Libyan shores. And, in fact, I detect an Italian troop convoy, which is immediately attacked by the Royal Navy.